The George Brown Lecture (of the Clay Minerals Group), inaugurated in 2000, is named after the eminent British clay mineralogist, one of the founding members of the Clay Minerals Group. The lecture is given at one of the Group’s annual meetings, by a speaker who is invited by the Secretary of CMG, based on advice from the Committee. The lecturer is a clay mineralogist, academic or industrial, recognised as an authority in their particular field, and the lecture is published as a review paper in Clay Minerals.
Previous recipients of the award
(links give free access to the full text of the lecture as a pdf).
| 2025 | 26th | Stefan Kaufhold | tbd |
| 2024 | 25th | Katja Emmerich | Engineered barriers, the sandwich sealing system and the swelling of bentonites |
| 2023 | 24th | Janice Bishop | Characterizing phyllosilicates on Mars and what they reveal about ancient geochemical environments |
| 2022 | 23rd | Yael Mishael | Clay-polymer nanocomposites for pollutant adsorption – from design to application |
| 2021 | 22nd | David Manning | Mineral stabilities in soils: how minerals can feed the world and mitigate climate change (link to video of presentation) |
| 2020 (postponed to 2022) | 21st | Sabine Petit | Generalized relationships between the ionic radii of octahedral cations and the b crystallographic parameter of clay and related minerals |
| 2019 | 20th | Toshihiro Kogure University of Tokyo | Visualization of clays at the atomic scale |
| 2018 | 19th | Steve Hillier Hutton Institute, UK | Quantitative analysis of clay minerals and poorly ordered phases by prior determined X-ray diffraction full pattern fitting: procedures and prospects |
| 2017 | 18th | Peter Vrolijk and David Pevear (formerly of Exxon) | Fault Dating: Motivations, Early Development, and Impact |
| 2016 | 17th | Lynda Williams Arizona State University | Geomimicry: Harnessing the antibacterial action of clays |
| 2015 | 16th | Balwant Singh University of Sydney | Imperfect minerals can control soil fertility and geochemistry |
| 2015 | 15th | Sergey Krivovichev St. Petersburg State University | Structural complexity of zeolites |
| 2013 | 14th | Jon Phipps Imerys | Engineering minerals for performance applications – an industrial perspective |
| 2012 | 13th | George Christidis Technical University of Crete | Smectites and zeolites: genesis in similar geological environments yields unique and intriguing properties |
| 2011 | 12th | Javier Cuadros Natural History Museum, London | Crystal chemical adaptability and transformation mechanisms |
| 2011 | 11th | Hendrik Heinz Akron University | Clay minerals for nanocomposites and biotechnology: surface modification, dynamics, and responses to stimuli |
| 2009 | 10th | Joe Stucki University of Illinois | Evolution of the Study of Redox Reactions of Fe in Smectites |
| 2009 | 9th | Paul Nadeau | Earth’s energy “Golden Zone”: A triumph of mineralogical research |
| 2008 | 8th | Roger Parfitt Landcare Research, New Zealand | Allophane and imogolite: their influence in biogeochemistry |
| 2007 | 7th | Dave Bish University of Illinois | Phase transitions in 1:1 dioctahedral phyllosilicates; the importance of the interlayer region |
| 2005/2006 | 6th | Alain Manceau LGIT Grenoble, France | Smectic clays: Nature’s own nanoparticles |
| 2004 | 5th | Cliff Johnston Purdue University, USA | Probing the nano-scale architecture of clay minerals |
| 2003 | 4th | Jeff Wilson Macaulay Institute | Products, processes and rates of primary mineral weathering |
| 2002 | 3rd | Victor Drits Geological Institute Russian Acad. Sci. | Structural and chemical heterogeneity of layer silicates and clay minerals |
| 2001 | 2nd | Peter Komadel Slovak Acad. Sci. Bratislava | Chemically modified smectites |
| 2000 | 1st | Alain Plançon Université d’Orléans, France | Order-disorder in clay mineral structures |